Showing posts with label Mars Mission. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mars Mission. Show all posts

Sunday, July 31, 2016

Mars Colonial Transporter concept by Richard Heidmann

Picture of the Day 31/7/16 - Concept art for SpaceX's Mars Colonial Transporter by Richard Heidmann from the French chapter of The Mars Society (Association Planète Mars). You can also read his speculations of the possible MCP mission architecture details here.

SpaceX Mars Colonial Transporter concept by Richard Heidmann

SpaceX Mars Colonial Transporter cockpit concept by Richard Heidmann

As the day the SpaceX CEO Elon Musk intends to unveil (at the International Astronautical Congress 26-30 September 2016 in Guadalajara, Mexico) details of its 'Mars Colonial Transporter' (MCT) mission architecture is nearing, we will mostly dedicate our 'Picture of the Day' awards to the fan concept art of the MCT.

Sunday, July 10, 2016

Astronauts exploring Mars by Balazs Agoston

Picture of the Day 10/7/16 - Astronauts exploring Mars by Balazs Agoston from Hungary. More of his concept art here.
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Astronauts exploring Mars by Balazs Agoston

Monday, May 30, 2016

Soviet lander on Phobos by Maciej Rebisz

Picture of the Day 30/5/16 - Soviet lander on Phobos by Polish sci-fi artist Maciej Rebisz. More of his art here and here.
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Soviet lander on Phobos by Maciej Rebisz

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Video: NASA's Journey to Mars

NASA Journey to Mars
In recent months NASA has released some exciting videos visualizing its "Journey to Mars". What is more important - they represent a conceptual shift from Apollo's style approach [every expedition to it's own location] to a more longsighted approach - every expedition to the same one location. At the workshop in October, 2015 NASA officials revealed that "human exploration of Mars is not planned as a single mission, but a series of three to five expeditions, each with a crew of four to six, lasting about 500 Martian days each. All would land in the same exploration zone, or EZ. The plan includes the construction of a surface field station to be located in the center of the exploration." It means that NASA's "Journey to Mars" mission concept has become more friendly to a goal of a permanent human colony on Mars.


NASA's base on Mars after a few decades:

Saturday, January 30, 2016

Concept art for The Martian movie

The official Facebook page of The Martian has posted some concept art pictures for the movie. Here they are (click for original resolution):

Concept art for The Martian - Mark Watney, rover and the RTG

Concept art for The Martian - the base

Concept art for The Martian - Mark Watney working at base

Saturday, September 19, 2015

Mars movie review - Red Planet (2000)

Red Planet movie poster
In the time we all are waiting for the upcoming sci-fi blockbuster The Martian I decided to watch again and review Red Planet (2000) - a sci-fi movie stared by Val Kilmer and Carrie-Anne Moss with quite similar plot (astronauts trying to survive and get off Mars) as the The Martian but undeservedly low scored by the most critics.

Story


In the first part of 21st century humans have totally polluted Earth and now are remotely trying to terraform Mars to make it a second home for humanity. For 20 years everything seems to be going according to the plan - temperatures on Mars has been raised and dispatched algae has been starting to cover more and more of the planet introducing oxygen in its atmosphere. Suddenly all the algae vanishes and there is no other way but to send a manned mission to find out - why this is happening.

It is year 2056 and a crew of 6 is being sent to Mars aboard the "Mars-1" in the first manned mission to Mars. When they reach the orbit of Mars their ship is struck by a particle burst from an unexpectedly powerful Solar flare. In result the electronics of Mars-1 is fried and fire is spreading through all the ship. 5 of 6 crew members eject the ship with landing module but the only female - ship's captain Bowman (Carrie-Anne Moss) - stays on Mars-1 to save the ship.


Tuesday, September 8, 2015

HD images from The Martian movie

The upcoming sci-fi movie "The Martian" is based on the novel by Andy Weir and is directed by Ridley Scott (known for Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, Prometheus and countless other movies). The Martian will hit theaters mostly on early October 2015 (see full list of release dates here).

Plot in brief: "During a manned mission to Mars, astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon) is presumed dead after a fierce storm and left behind by his crew. But Watney has survived and finds himself stranded and alone on the hostile planet. With only meager supplies, he must draw upon his ingenuity, wit and spirit to subsist and find a way to signal to Earth that he is alive. Millions of miles away, NASA and a team of international scientists work tirelessly to bring “the Martian” home, while his crewmates concurrently plot a daring, if not impossible rescue mission. As these stories of incredible bravery unfold, the world comes together to root for Watney’s safe return."

More stuff from The Martian:  ►Trailers  ►Quotes  ►Concept art

Some of the best images from the various trailers of The Martian (Open link in new tab to view in full resolution):

Rover image from The Martian movieMatt Damon in greenhouse image from The Martian movie

Spaceship image from The Martian movieMatt Damon image from The Martian movie

Matt Damon image from The Martian movieMatt Damon image from The Martian movie

Saturday, June 13, 2015

Awesome movie trailers of The Martian [updated]

The Martian movie poster
My first thoughts - Awesome! If the movie will be as good as the trailers The Martian will become the BEST MARS MOVIE EVER, overthrowing Total Recall from that throne. The Martian will hit theaters mostly on early October 2015 (see full list of release dates here).

The Martian is based on the novel by Andy Weir and is directed by Ridley Scott (known for Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, Prometheus and countless other movies). Plot in brief: "During a manned mission to Mars, astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon) is presumed dead after a fierce storm and left behind by his crew. But Watney has survived and finds himself stranded and alone on the hostile planet. With only meager supplies, he must draw upon his ingenuity, wit and spirit to subsist and find a way to signal to Earth that he is alive. Millions of miles away, NASA and a team of international scientists work tirelessly to bring “the Martian” home, while his crewmates concurrently plot a daring, if not impossible rescue mission. As these stories of incredible bravery unfold, the world comes together to root for Watney’s safe return."

More stuff from The Martian:  ►Concept art  ►HD images  ►Quotes



Update: The 2nd "official trailer" of The Martian released on 19 August:

Wednesday, May 6, 2015

5 spacecraft currently orbiting Mars

In a recent article "Traffic around Mars gets busy" the NASA/JPL summed up some facts about spacecraft currently orbiting Mars. The most interesting is the provided graphic of their orbits around Mars (together with planet's two natural satellites Phobos & Deimos):

Mars orbiters

So there are 5 active Mars orbiters currently orbiting the planet:

Saturday, April 25, 2015

Take off from Mars by Pat Rawlings

Picture of the Day 25/4/15 - Spaceship taking off from Mars (1990) by space illustrator Pat Rawlings. His description about this drawing you can read here.

Spaceship leaving Mars by Pat Rawlings

Saturday, March 7, 2015

Why we should go to Mars, a video interview with Robert Zubrin

Robert Zubrin
4 part video interview with Robert Zubrin, the president of The Mars Society, around the main subject - Why we should go to Mars? The interview was done by moonandback.com in 2012. Zubrin's and The Mars Society's efforts towards the manned mission to Mars was depicted in details in The Mars Underground documentary.

1. part - about Zubrin's career in space and the path that led to the founding of the Mars Society.

Monday, February 23, 2015

Spaceship in Mars orbit by Tim Flattery

Picture of the Day 23/2/15 - Spaceship in Mars orbit by Tim Flattery from his concept art for Mission to Mars. More of his concept art for movies here.

Mission to Mars

Saturday, February 14, 2015

Saturday, February 7, 2015

Astronauts exploring Mars by Kyle Brown

Picture of the Day 7/2/15 - Astronauts trying to find a lost Mars rover by American concept artist Kyle Brown. More of his art here.
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Astronauts exploring Mars by Kyle Brown

Thursday, January 29, 2015

Mars movie review - Stranded (2001)

Stranded movie Mars
Stranded (original title in Spanish: Náufragos) is a 2001 low budget Spanish movie about struggle for survival of 5 astronauts stranded on Mars. Not all of them survive till the end.

Story


The movie starts with Mars landing craft crashing on the surface of the planet along with 6 astronauts. The captain of the crew is dead and the remaining 5 are trying to figure out how to survive till the rescue mission could hopefully arrive 26 months later. The resources of food, water, oxygen and energy is limited and the only "solution" seems to be to let survive only 2 of them. So the 3 "expendable" ones are going for a "walk". They reach the edge of the Valles Marineris and descend down. When only 2 of them are left they discover a cave which unexpectedly turn into ancient Martian tunnels with oxygen in them. An unfortunate step into "wrong" tunnel kills 1 of 2 remaining ones. The last surviving women discovers the dead bodies of local Martians and their somehow pressurized (with no visible roof) oasis / ghost town into the depths of Valles Marineris. So she calls the other 2 which had stayed in the landing craft to come and join her. Hopefully they will survive till the rescue comes.

Verdict: 5/10


If the best Mars movie - Total Recall - would be about 1 point short of being "the ideal Mars movie", Stranded is 4 more points bellow that level because of these huge drawbacks:
  • the movie is low budget and it definitely feels like being low budget;
  • the acting is very poor. You don't get the feeling that characters are actual top-level astronauts/scientists which had been carefully chosen to be the first humans on Mars. Dialogues are clumsy and, despite the movie being quite depressive, the actors don't believably act as being hopelessly stranded millions of miles from Earth with possible rescue coming only years away at best.
Despite that, the concept of the movie is quite interesting (unlike some recent Mars-zombie movies like The last days on Mars with a bigger budget) and Stranded is worth watching for Mars fans.

Here you can watch the trailer of the movie:


My reviews of other movies set on Mars:

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

The Mars Underground, updated edition

The Mars Underground poster
The Mars Underground is a documentary about the dream to get to Mars.. about the disappointment of "space era" kids/youth for NASA not going further after the human landing on Moon on 1969. One of such kids was visionary rocket scientist, the president of The Mars Society Robert Zubrin who with his team has developed his own plan for getting humans to Mars and back - Mars Direct (with updated mission architecture called "Mars Semi-Direct"). They are confident the mission could be carried out in a decade if only NASA would dare to try. It would be the first step for colonizing Mars and thereby making humanity a multi-planet civilization.

As the documentary was released in May, 2007 it doesn't cover the more recent plans for Mars colonization/exploration by SpaceX.

You can watch the most recent version (labeled as "Updated edition/Director's cut") of the film here:


Saturday, July 26, 2014

Mars base by Douglas Shrock

Picture of the Day 26/7/14 - Mars base by American sci-fi artist Douglas Shrock (Shrox). More of his Mars art here.
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Mars base by Douglas Shrock